Jax: Hmmmm. I'm concerned this could come across as reinforcing racist ideological structures. Imagine if an excerpt of the scene were performed, especially if it didn't include that first section on colonialism -- Nonkululeko could appear as an essentialized and marginalized "angry African" voice.

Nonkululeko: Well of course it's racist, man. This whole project is racist, because both we as characters and the hypothesized "readers" are situated within a context dominated by (Euro) empire.

Velvet: Isn't that inevitable, at least for us?

Nonkululeko: Maybe, maybe not. But the challenge isn't so much not to be racist, in some sense of purifying the ideology, but rather how we're able to push our words and actions in directions that challenge and undermine the inevitable racism.

base: Like in this scene, my perspective kind of gets the most airtime and is the most compelling to the characters involved. Even though I think it's a bit longwinded and overwrought. But wouldn't it be better to give more air to Nonkie's view, to counteract any reinforcing of the stereotype that African voices are just foils to Eurocentric ones?

Jax: But we wouldn't want to be tokenizing, would we? Is it the words that are important, or the people that say them?

Velvet: Surely that's a false dichotomy, especially for this kind of a project in which we are trying to be living, breathing essentializations of worldviews and attitudes that inhabit whole groups of people.

Nonkululeko: Look, I think the real question is not some hand-wringing over whether or not this project should or shouldn't include characters of color, etc., how much airtime, etc. etc. Those might be useful things to look at, but the main question is whether our conversations are actually supporting deeper understanding and interactions of solidarity among people and groups coming from various positions within -- and beyond -- empire. Ie. "races" and "nations", "settlers" and "indigenous", and all the rest.

Velvet: But if "readers" feel put off by the project from the get-go because they're misrepresented or stereotyped or marginalized, that will make such an outcome much harder, no?

base: Well, what would make it better?